Kelvin Wade

I love my iPad and I’m not ashamed

I admit I have a problem. I love my iPad Mini with retina display. I’m not ashamed to admit that I refer to it as “my baby” and I carry her around with me in a murse. At night I’m on her until the wee hours. In the morning she’s the first thing I reach for. I’m just amazed that I can carry such a beautiful device around that enables me to access the collective knowledge of mankind. If loving her is wrong…you know the rest.

I used her to film my grandson’s first movie, “Karma” (being released to YouTube soon!). I composed and played the music for the movie on my iPad. She enabled me to film the latest episode of “Mystery Eats” where I blindfold my grandson and feed him different foods for him to identify. She’s made it possible for me to feed my narcissism by taking countless selfies of my Poo-Tzu puppy, Mazy and me.

Me and my baby

So I was horrified when she fell ill. When I plugged her cable in to charge her it would sometimes say, “NOT CHARGING.” I could leave her plugged in all night and in the morning. she was still exhausted and out of power. I bought two new cables and it made no difference. Then, one day. I turned on the camera to take my sixty nine thousandth selfie and the screen blurred. Later, it did it again. As much as I would miss her, I had no choice but to send her to the Apple ER.

No, she doesn’t qualify for Obamacare. But fortunately she was still under warranty with AppleCare. So I called Apple and the next morning, FedEx left a box on my porch for me to ship her to Apple. The box contained a bag to put her in, prepaid shipping label and even tape to tape it up! Only an iDrone flying to my doorstep to pick it up would have been better.

I sent her away and panic set in. What would I do without her? Since I regularly checked email on her, I didn’t remember my passwords to check email on my laptop. I needed her to tell me the weather forecast. I needed her to research my columns. I actually tried taking pictures with my digital camera and I could barely do it. (What’s a digital camera?) Gone were my late night YouTube videos in bed. No audiobooks. No movie info. No Facebook, HuffPo, Drudge, or Bigbuxomblondes.com, No Netflix, HBO GO or Pandora.

I tried using my cell phone as a replacement, but there was no comparison. Trying to play Words with Friends on a cell phone with sausage fingers like mine was useless. When I tried to read a book on the Kindle app on my cell phone, it just reminded me that I need glasses.

Went to a doctor’s appointment. I found out I’d lost 17 lbs since my last visit two months ago, my blood pressure was 120/70, I’m not diabetic and I hadn’t been sick in ages. Plus, my doctor’s office finally moved into the 20th century by becoming computerized. So the days of that office using technology outpaced by the Flintstones was over. Yet my doctor wondered why I still looked so glum.

I couldn’t tell her. She’s a woman who grew up poor in Russia, made it through medical school and came to America to ply her craft. You can’t share your First World Problem with someone who grew up standing in line for potatoes.

My girlfriend offered to let me use her Google Nexus 7 tablet. I declined. Fondling another tablet in bed at night while my baby was in some repair center being nursed back to health by dweebs would be cheating. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

When I received an email from Apple, I was elated. But my heart dropped when it said they’d tested my iPad and she worked fine. How could this be? Had it all been a hoax? Had she faked being ill so she could have a clandestine rendezvous with an iPad Air or iPhone 5s? No, she wouldn’t do that. They gave me a list of about eight questions that I answered and sent back.

I later received another email that told me a replacement iPad had shipped! Woohoo! Man, I did some old school Rerun pop-locking in my living room that ultimately knocked over a vase and left my poor PooTzu cowering in the back of her pen. Yeah, it was bittersweet that they were replacing my love for another but since I’d sweated out 72 hours without my honey, I was finally okay with loving another. I knew once I had that fine piece of silicon in my arms with my hands gripping her thin bezel, fingertips gliding over her apps and Siri calling my name, she’d be right at home.

The next day the FedEx guy banged on my door like the po-lice and I ended up dumping half my painkillers down the toilet before I realized it was just the delivery guy bringing my honey home.

But while she was gone, I realized some things. I’ve learned that you can actually go outside and experience real life instead of the virtual one on a screen. At night, I’ve been reading an actual book instead of an ebook. (“Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void” by Mary Roach. Mary Roach rocks!) I had coffee with one of my closest friends in the world. Another amazing friend sent me an awesome snail mail card just to say she was thinking of me! I’ve been taking care of my girlfriend who has been laid up with an injury.

Then I went to watch my granddaughter play basketball in her summer league. While she sprinted up and down the court en route to beating Will C. Wood, all I could think about was 2003 when I was trying to teach her how to dribble a ball. And now, at 17 and a high school senior, she was flourishing right before my eyes.

No tablet or smartphone has anything to offer that’s better than spending time with your kids or grandkids. There’s no app better than walking hand in hand with the one you love and no game offers the feeling you get from laughing with family and friends. Instagrammed food can’t hold a candle to eating the real thing. No vacation photo or Facebook cover shot tops being on a cruise in real life or lounging on a beach with a Mojito.

So, turn your smartphone and/or tablet off during meals. And don’t just avoid texting while driving. Don’t text while walking. Look up. Put it on vibrate. Keep that tablet away when you’re interacting with an actual human. Life is too short to just watch it unfold on a screen.

That’s right. I’m going outside…to pick up an iPhone 6 when it comes out. Or maybe Apple will come out with a new iPad Mini with an A8 processor and fingerprint sensor and updated camera! Yeah, I meant all that stuff I said up there about family and blah, blah, blah, but if you think I’m giving up my baby, hell naw! She’s back! Selfie time!

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Madgew

Were they able to safe everything? iCloud work to restore to new one? Having just gotten one and using it the first away from home, I love it. Learning new things about mine everyday. Glad you are back.

Kelvin

Bruno

Very nice to read this blog. I have an iPad Air and I absolutely love it. I carry it everywhere I go it is always with me and at this point I think would buy a new one if mine fell ill. It is simply part of my daily routine

Were they able to safe everything? iCloud work to restore to new one? Having just gotten one and using it the first away from home, I love it. Learning new things about mine everyday. Glad you are back.

Kelvin

Yes, I have it set to back up everything to iCloud. So once I got the replacement one it loaded everything back the way it was! (Including all my notes and appointments.) Yay!

Madgew

Yay! Got a brand new one or reconditioned?

Kelvin

Don’t know. But most likely a refurb. It’s okay if it is. They put new outer shells and new batteries in them. Sure looks new!

Bruno

Very nice to read this blog. I have an iPad Air and I absolutely love it. I carry it everywhere I go it is always with me and at this point I think would buy a new one if mine fell ill. It is simply part of my daily routine